How to Stop Getting Taken on Guilt Trips

Most of us like to travel, but I don’t know anyone who enjoys being taken on a guilt trip.

We all know that a guilt trip is designed to induce an unpleasant feeling of guilt in another person, in order to manipulate that person into doing what the guilt tripper wants.

Here’s the thing: Nobody can take you on a guilt trip, if you aren’t willing to pack your bags and take the ride. The reason you might keep being played is because, without knowing it, you have tipped your emotional hat and let the guilt tripper know you are an easy mark.

Think about a dog begging for food from your table. He flashes those hangdog eyes and cons you into believing he’s dying of starvation, and that the scrap he has his eye on is the only cure. Next comes your fatal move: You give in to his manipulation and throw him the scrap. Now you’ve trained that dog to manipulate you till the cows (or the Chuck Wagon) come home. This is operant conditioning in action.

The same conditioning happens in our two-legged relationships. If you have what I call a “guilt allergy,” meaning you can’t stomach the feeling of guilt, you are a prime target for a guilt tripper. In fact, the guilt tripper, like a dog, can sniff out your weakness.

But don’t worry; there is a solution. To stop being taken on guilt trips, you have to build up your emotional muscle. You can do this by training yourself to bear the uncomfortable feeling of guilt. At first, this will be very hard to do. But with practice, you will see that your emotional muscle—and your resistance—gets stronger. Then you will be able to bear the emotional weight and tolerate the guilty feelings that the guilt tripper is trying to induce in you, without giving the tripper what he or she wants.

What is so powerful about this solution is the fact that your refusal to "bite" creates a ripple effect that defangs the guilt tripper. In this way, you are actually re-training the guilt tripper and conditioning him or her to cut it out. By not rewarding the guilt tripper with what he or she wants—not throwing the scrap—the guilt tripper, like the dog, will eventually stop the routine. Remember, no behavior continues without it being fed. When the feeding stops, the behavior stops.

But beware: The guilt tripper, like the dog, will periodically test you. This means you are going to need to keep your guard up and consistently refuse to feed the beast. After about six weeks, your new muscle will be fully developed and the guilt tripper’s game will be broken.

All these tactics create relationship friction and fighting, and in order to maintain a healthy, thriving relationship, it’s vital to identify all the Fight Traps that are afoot and eliminate each of them. Sending guilt trips packing is the first leg on your journey toward a lifetime of lasting love.

PS: Since this article only addresses one aspect of guilt tripping (when it's used to manipulate another person), please read my answers to the comments regarding other aspects of this topic, such as when a person should be guilty, how to hold a guilty party accountable without using guilt trips, and much more.

How do you know if you're guilty? That's the trick with guilt trips--you've taken on the burden for so long you no longer have the perspective to know what real guilt is. Here's a paper on the subject from a school of psychotherapy that deals explicitly with guilt, http://sfprg.org/control_mastery/docs/Bush1989.pdf

You are so correct. What you're really talking about is abuse. Generally, this kind of abuse starts in childhood, where an innocent kid is blamed for things he/she didn't do. This kind of trauma invariably gets repeated in adulthood, and the formerly abused child chooses a partner who continues the familiar pattern. Of course, we fall into this repetition because we are hoping to heal the Old Scar from childhood. The fantasy being that if we are really good this time around our partners will see our goodness and stop blaming us--and this will feel as though we've achieved a resolution or what I call a Happy Ending to the Old Scar. Of course, this rarely works out precisely because we've chosen a partner who is exactly like the parent who harmed us. So, we keep reliving the pain rather healing it. In Kiss Your Fights Good-bye I outline exactly how to identify and heal Old Scars like this, so that we break the cycle.

In addition to reading the book and putting my healing steps in place, it is very helpful to surround oneself with people who are loving and supportive and who offer frequent reality checks. When we receive frequent reminders from unbiased observers that we aren't at fault, we can begin to reframe our perspective and stop accepting the burden of guilt.

In this article, I'm talking about how to respond to guilt tripping that's designed to manipulate another person into doing what the tripper wants.

Your question refers to another issue entirely--the case in which a person is guilty of some wrongdoing and the guilt trip is a plea on the part of the victim to be heard.

First, I want to make it clear that relationship wrongdoing can take many forms. In my new Hay House book, Kiss Your Fights Good-bye, I discuss what I call violations of "Relationship Laws." By this I'm referring to wrongdoing that cannot and should not be tolerated. Such violations include breaking the law, gambling, physical and verbal abuse, persistent infidelity, to name but a few of the many violations that I outline in the book. If these kinds of violations are occurring, the proper response is not to lay a guilt trip but, rather, to put one's foot down and demand that the wrongdoer own his/her behavior and stop it. If the wrongdoer doesn't stop, that's cause for a dissolution of the relationship, not more guilt trips!

By the way, laying guilt trips in an effort to coerce the other party to stop a particular behavior is a useless operation. If anything, guilt tripping can actually become a form of condoning that reinforces the unacceptable behavior--yes, I may bitch and moan, but I'm still putting up with the behavior. It's up to the wrongdoer to step up to the plate and change. The wrongdoer will know that he/she is doing better if the guilt tripping stops.

Beyond these extreme violations, there are less egregious kinds of injuries that occur all the time in our intimate relationships--we all unintentionally step on each other's emotional toes. In other words, we are often "guilty" of emotional wrongdoing.

Here's the thing: relationships aren't a court of law; they are a court of love. In the court of love, we work to listen, understand and accept responsibility for the impact of our words and actions. Our goal is to not act like judges who pass sentences on another's reactions to our words and actions by saying, for example, "You have no right to feel theway you do." Or "You're wrong to feel the way you do."

Because feelings are not wrong or right, it's more helpful to view feelings like the wind. There is the north wind, the west wind, the east wind... We would never say that the north wind is good and the east wind is bad. Similarly, we never want to say that another person's feelings are wrong (actions may be wrong, but feelings should not be subjected to a "wrong/right" evaluation). Feelings just are what they are. To pass judgment on another person's reactions to our words and actions is to turn the relationship into a court of law. Instead, in the court of love, we listen with an open-heart and accept responsibility for having inflicted emotional harm on the other. Because we often are "guilty" of inflicting harm, we must often accept responsibility for the negative impact of our words and actions.

But here's the key: to help another person to own his/her wrongdoing, the wronged party must present his/her feelings in a way that the guilty party can swallow. Bottom line: laying a guilt trip isn't the way to help a "wrongdoer" take responsibility. This is because when we're on the receiving end of a trip, we become angry and defensive, which blocks our ability to accept responsibility--and may make us want to pay the guilt tripper back with more of the same wrongdoing!

In Kiss Your Fights Good-bye I detail how to replace guilt tripping with more constructive communications that enable us to present our beefs in a way that the other can hear. Replacing guilt tripping with constructive communications is the ultimate gift to ourselves, the other person and our relationship.

One last point. Owning up or accepting guilt is an essential relationship tool. In fact, most conflicts can be resolved through listening, understanding and genuinely accepting responsibility.

Last but not least, in addition to accepting responsibility for our "guilt," we must also commit to changing any behaviors that are persistently troublesome to the other. Otherwise, our words will soon ring hollow.

When the wrongdoer truly listens, understands, accepts responsibility and makes the necessary changes to clean up his/her own side of the emotional fence, he/she will be rewarded by less guilt tripping!

Your article is devoid of the fact that some people need to be put on a guilt trip. My 49 yr old son was supposed to help me with a home project in order to receive some money he needed. HE sat around and didn't begin to start. I sent him an e-mail and told him that I felt he was oushing my needs asde and that I felt disrespected and when he needed someting I was always there for him and provided what ever he needed. I said that if a caring father were around he'd be telling him that he should take care of his mother's needs. With that he came yelling at me to don't ever guilt trip him and went all of.
Some selfish children and people need a damn guilt trip and more. So don't tell them how to ignore tier parents or anyone they are taking advantage of. It took him five days to do the job that would have taken me one day. ANd he didn't finish the last bit of it on the 6th day becasue he became so abusive and disrespectful that i told him to leave. The only reason I did ask was beause I wasn't going to just hand him money . He had to earn it. Plus he had been taken out to eat and helped with an excahnge of tires that cost a bit. I'M DONE.

This is the problem with writing a short piece that discusses only one aspect of a question.

In this one short article, I was talking about how to respond to guilt trips that are used as a manipulation.

I invite you to read my response to the comment: "What if you are guilty."

We all need to be made responsible for our words and actions. This is the CENTRAL tenet of my latest book, Kiss Your Fights Good-bye.

My heart goes out to you. It sounds like your son never had a father to set limits and train him on how to respect you.

Many single parents allow their kids to get away with murder because they feel guilty that the child is missing a parent. Soon, they have created a monster who gets away with murder and the poor single parent is being abused right and left.

I am in total agreement with you. You should not be taken advantage of by your son or anyone. Giving money and dinners out to someone who abuses you only encourages more mistreatment.

Putting your foot down is the right move. It sounds like it's been a long time coming. Better late than never!

I have kindly contacted your PsychologyToday office on a number of occasions and requested to have my posts on this site removed, via various communication channels supplied on this site -- to no avail...no answer at all to my inquiry. At this point, I have to interpret this lack of response from your staff, as a blatant disregard for me as an online user/customer, and secondly as a human being. Naturally, this negation would make any customer/online user feel personally affronted. This negative user experience does not speak well of your organization, staff and your field's profession of helping people -- when you can't even make a small effort to return an inquiry.

It is a sad reflection of the times, when a person has to look for alternative means to be heard -- by people who are committed to ignoring you...perhaps because I do not hold a prestigious doctorate title or other, to warrant some level of customer service.

This post stands as my formal request to have ALL my posts removed from this site ASAP.

I hear your anger at the Psychology Today customer service department. To be clear, you spoke of this department as "my staff." But they are not my staff. I simply write a column here on the Psychology Today website. I have no involvement with the management of PT. If I had a customer service issue, I would be using the same links that you use! That said, I know how awful it feels to be invisible and not feel heard. It's maddening. It brings back the pain of having been treated this way as a kid., which arouses such impotent rage. I know how it feels.

I am going to submit your comment to the editorial staff and hope that your problem is finally addressed.

Best wishes.

I did reach out to my contact in the editorial department. She said that they can't respond to your issue because they don't know who you are. You signed your comment anonymously. Please write back and give me your contact info so I can pass it along.

How do you think one should behave with a parent who continuously manipulates you with guilt? Given an option should we cut all connections with them? I have given them a lot of chances. They never learn.

While it is tempting to toss an annoying person aside, that doesn't solve your problem. The clue to the actual problem is found in the language you used to pose your question. You said that your parent "manipulates you." But, nobody can manipulate you without your consent! In truth, it's more accurate to say that your parent tries to manipulate you and that you allow the manipulations to get to you. See the difference? The goal for you is to be unaffected by your parent's games. Of course, you can cut your parent off, but you will still be easy prey for another manipulator. It's like being a dry drunk. A person may not drink, but he/she is still an alcoholic. The goal for you is to reach the point where you can say to yourself my parent tries to manipulate me but I don't have to take the bait. The reason you haven't been able to do this so far is because the young part of your psyche hasn't yet healed. Each time your parent pulls a number, your mind regresses back to the time when you were a kid and your parent treated you this way. As a kid, you had no power. To heal, the adult part of you needs to help the young part of you by reminding you that you are no longer subject to your parent. You may feel tormented and guilty to say no, but, in your case, guilt is a growing pain. When you can feel the guilt and not give in you know you're healing. The ultimate goal is to reach the point where you can step back and watch "the show" as an impartial spectator. When you reach this point, you will be able to see your parent as a young child who learned to get his/her way by being manipulative. When you can step back and not be affected, you know that you've healed. Until you reach this point, you know that the young part of your psyche is still in need of healing. A cut off will never bring you this healing.

Thank you for your commitment to the subject of guilt trips, for providing a number of resources for free and in various mediums for those of us affected by guilt trips and for your commitment to this article. The time it takes to create these various pieces of content, including thoughtful replies to the comments above (including comments which, in my opinion, are irrelevant to the subject and, in one case, a perfect example of an attempted guilt trip!). I'm grateful for the resources; I suppose my need for credentialed and digestible perspectives on how people can cope with life's challenges drives me to express my thanks. I hope you, and others who similarly provide helpful information from a caring place, continue to do so.